Review - Al Jardine, original founding member of The Beach Boys @ the Chapel (4/8/18)

Al and Matt Jardine (Photo: Kevin Keating)

I’ve been to the Chapel a few times, but last night was the first time I’ve witnessed a seated show while attending Al Jardine’s “A Postcard from California: From the Very First Song with a Founding Member of The Beach Boys” tour — which was his last show before rejoining Brian Wilson for a string of summer dates to celebrate Pet Sounds.

Al Jardine (Photo: Kevin Keating)

For the near capacity crowd in attendance, Al Jardine walked us through a history of The Beach Boys starting with their very first single, “Surfin’” and winding all the way up to Al’s own, “A Postcard from California”, from his 2010 solo album. Interspersed between each song, Al would share stories and details of what each song meant — or the moments in history happening in/around the hits.

Al Jardine (Photo: Kevin Keating)

And on stage, Al was joined by his son, Matt Jardine, who handled vocal duties and some light percussion (ie. tambourine and shaker), as well as Jeff Alan Ross, on keyboards and backing visuals. Jeff’s visuals included amazing archival shots of Al and the rest of the Beach Boys across their long career — as well as personal moments of Al with Matt as a young child.

Al Jardine (Photo: Kevin Keating)

For the 75 year young, Jardine, he and the band sounded great, and it was such a special experience to hear the behind-the-scenes stories of arguably The Beach Boys biggest hits. One story that stood out was a time when in the late-60’s, at a time when the Beach Boys were the biggest American pop band of all-time, Al got a knock on the door by none other than George Harrison and Paul McCartney, who were attempting to recruit the Beach Boys to the teachings of the Maharishi. This was connected to a European festival the Beach Boys were playing at the time, and later, when they hit the stage, Al looked out into the crowd and saw the Maharishi sandwiched between Paul and George in the 3rd row. Given how big each band was at the time (and still are to this day!), there are no pictures of the bands together, and it was years later when this picture below was taken.

Jeff Alan Ross, Al and Matt Jardine (Photo: Kevin Keating)

One of Al’s first stories of the night though gave credit to his late mother who loaned money to the guys so they could go out and rent instruments. Can you imagine if they’d never been able to get instruments to play?!? And another funny quip that The Beach Boys actually hated the band name that their label had given them — they wanted to grow beards at the time and be known as The Beach Men.

Jeff Alan Ross, Al and Matt Jardine (Photo: Kevin Keating)

Overall, this was an extremely special night where we heard the timeless hits from the biggest American band of all time, and the stories that accompanied them. As I mentioned earlier, you can catch Al Jardine later this year when he joins back up with Brian Wilson for Pet Sounds and a special Christmas concert in Santa Rosa on December 22nd (tickets here).

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